First-line treatment of patients with HER2-positive metastatic gastric and gastroesophageal junction cancer

Fluoropyrimidine+cisplatin/oxaliplatin+trastuzumab therapy is recommended for the first-line treatment of HER2-positive metastatic gastric adenocarcinoma. However, there is no comprehensive study on which platinum-based treatment should be preferred. This study aimed to compare the treatment response and survival characteristics of patients with HER2-positive metastatic gastric or gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) cancer who received fluorouracil, oxaliplatin, and leucovorin (mFOLFOX)+trastuzumab or cisplatin and fluorouracil (CF)+trastuzumab as first-line therapy. It was a multicenter, retrospective study of the Turkish Oncology Group, which included 243 patients from 21 oncology centers. There were 113 patients in the mFOLFOX+trastuzumab arm and 130 patients in the CF+trastuzumab arm. The median age was 62 years in the mFOLFOX+trastuzumab arm and 61 years in the CF+trastuzumab arm (P = 0.495). 81.4% of patients in the mFOLFOX+trastuzumab arm and 83.1% in the CF+trastuzumab arm had gastric tumor localization (P = 0.735). The median progression-free survival (PFS) was significantly higher in the mFOLFOX+trastuzumab arm (9.4 months vs. 7.3 months, P = 0.024). The median overall survival (OS) was similar in both groups (18.4 months vs. 15.1 months, P = 0.640). Maintenance trastuzumab was continued after chemotherapy in 101 patients. In this subgroup, the median OS was 23.3 months and the median PFS was 13.3 months. In conclusion, mFOLFOX+trastuzumab is similar to CF+trastuzumab in terms of the median OS, but it is more effective in terms of the median PFS in the first-line treatment of HER2-positive metastatic gastric and GEJ cancer. The choice of treatment should be made by considering the prominent toxicity findings of the chemotherapy regimens

Eğitim, kalkınma ve gelişme bağlamında uluslararası örgütlerin yaklaşımı: ÇATOM örneği.

This thesis is meant to describe and analyze approach of international organizations in relation to education, development and empowerment as well as their role at the intersection of these three concepts. In its attempt to understand the nature of international involvement in education with a development discourse and particularly to see the effects of this involvement on the target groups of the projects and programs, the thesis explores Multi-Purpose Community Centers (ÇATOMs) in Turkey’s southeast. The thesis identifies, on the one hand, that the ÇATOM project supports the analyses in the literature regarding the role of international organizations in the institutionalization of the idea of ‘education for development’ and in the standardization and dissemination of their own discourses about this idea. On the other hand, the current work proposes that ÇATOMs as a project supported by international organizations have produced rather limited but meaningful outcomes in terms of its economic effects on the participants; however, more importantly, it has also created qualitative changes on the daily life of the beneficiaries, which may contribute to social transformation of the region in the long term.M.S. - Master of Scienc

Review of Internet Censorship

While rapid advances in information technologies have provided people with great opportunities to access useful information on the Internet , they have also brought about a need to take control of the Internet. Methods of controlling the Internet have differed from country to country according to socio-economic conditions, religion and form of governance. Web pages containing child pornography, promoting drugs or suicide and manufacture of explosives have been banned in Turkey as well as in a good many countries in the world. On the other hand, in some countries known as “enemies of the Internet” such as China, Iran and Saudi Arabia, Internet prohibitions have turned into censorship and become alarming. Blockings in Turkey haven’t been called censorship yet but there are some concerns that in time they can turn into censorship since the scope of law 5651 has not been well defined and contains some subjective issues like obscenity.Bilgi teknolojilerindeki hızlı gelişmeler bir yandan insanların Internet üzerindeki yararlı bilgilere erişimi için önemli fırsatlar sağlarken diğer yandan Internet’in kontrol edilmesini gerekli hale getirmiştir. Internet’in kontrolü konusunda uygulanan yöntemler sosyo-ekonomik koşullar, inanç ve yönetim şekillerine göre ülkeden ülkeye farklılık göstermektedir. Çocuk pornografisi, uyuşturucuya özendirme, intihara teşvik ve patlayıcı madde yapımı gibi içerikler barındıran web siteleri pek çok ülkede olduğu gibi Türkiye’de de yasaklanmıştır. Diğer taraftan, “Internet Düşmanı” olarak tanımlanan Çin, İran ve Suudi Arabistan gibi ülkelerde Internet yasakları sansüre dönüşmüş ve endişe verici bir boyuta taşınmıştır. Türkiye’de ki erişim engellemeleri henüz sansür olarak değerlendirilmemektedir ancak, 5651 Sayılı Kanun’un kapsamının yeterince iyi tanımlanmaması ve müstehcenlik gibi tanımı son derece subjektif olan maddelerin bu yasa içerisinde yer alması erişim engellemenin zamanla sansüre dönüşebileceği endişesi yaratmaktadır

Optimum Assembly Sequence Planning System Using Discrete Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm

Assembly refers both to the process of combining parts to create a structure and to the product resulting therefrom. The complexity of this process increases with the number of pieces in the assembly. This paper presents the assembly planning system design (APSD) program, a computer program developed based on a matrix-based approach and the discrete artificial bee colony ( DABC) algorithm, which determines the optimum assembly sequence among numerous feasible assembly sequences (FAS). Specifically, the assembly sequences of three-dimensional (3D) parts prepared in the computer-aided design (CAD) software AutoCAD are first coded using the matrix-basedmethodology and the resulting FAS are assessed and the optimum assembly sequence is selected according to the assembly time optimisation criterion using DABC. The results of comparison of the performance of the proposed method with other methods proposed in the literature verify its superiority in finding the sequence with the lowest overall time. Further, examination of the results of application of APSD to assemblies consisting of parts in different numbers and shapes shows that it can select the optimum sequence from among hundreds of FAS